Up to Osaka now on another Shinkansen. Only about 45 mins this time, so not really any time to relax. The Shinkansen station is a way from the centre of town where our hotel is, so we had to take the metro into town. From there, it was a mere walk along a shopping mall...and along...and along. It turned out to be quite a way, but at least it was inside and air-conditioned. The weather has taken a warmer turn now and our rucksacks are seem to be getting heavier. As a consequence of our hotel being in the centre of town and also reasonably priced, the room is tiny. It is not possible to unpack either rucksack and still get out of the door. Still, it's only three nights.

Everyone has heard of the Cherry Blossom craze in Japan (locally known as Sakura). Of course, that happens in the spring. Slightly less well-known, but equally regarded by the Japanese is the autumn tree colouring. The fall leaf season is probably slightly longer than that of the blossom, so rather easier to observe for us travellers who don't have the luxury of when to go. In the north we found the colours were on the wane, but now we are in the south, they seem to be in full swing. Whilst this makes everything look very pretty, it does mean there is a lot of Japanese tourism going on too - which is fine. We did get to see some very pretty leaf displays at the temples we visited although, since the mountainsides are covered in cyprus trees, much of it was still green.

Osaka

Another consequence of our only being here for three nights, is that we hit the ground running. Megan had found a chef who was offering cooking classes, so we had booked on an evening's course on sushi making. We travelled out into the sticks on the day we arrived to the home of Yuki's to learn how sticky sushi rice really is, how sharp the knives are and what exactly are the ingredients of miso soup. We were quite proud of our sushi making results although they were probably laughable in the greater scheme of things. Under the expert tutelage of Yuki and as a result of making the stuff from scratch, it did taste good though.

Travelling out to get to the class brought home to us how large Osaka actually is. It was a ½ hour train ride and we were still in the city. Not what we have become used to on this trip. We had also already wandered a few of the streets around the hotel and the place does seem to be rather mad. Everywhere is an eatery of some kind or, failing that, a massive place full of pachinko slot machines.

Our first full day in Osaka saw us not in Osaka. We left on an early train, travelled south for an hour, picked up a funicular railway followed by a dramatic bus ride up the side of a mountain to the hilltop town of Koyasan. It's not actually on a hilltop, but in a valley about 1000m up surrounded by eight peaks that tower another 1000m above the town - like a lotus plant apparently. That's according to the Buddhists who seem to run the place. It was first settled in the 9^thC by the monk Kūkai and it is now consider the world headquarters of the Shingon sect of Buddhism. There's loads of information available for those interested. Suffice to say, for the heathens amongst us, there are over 200,000 shrines, temples and stone effigies dotted around the place. It is a rather dramatic and impressive place and well worth the trek to get there (and ours wasn't even a pilgrimage).

One of the temples at Koyasan contains Japan's largest rock garden - which is something to be seen. It is not as large as one might imagine, but it is quite impressive in its simplicity. It consists of gravel raked into patterns somewhat reminiscent of waves and dotted with boulders.

Our second full day in Osaka saw us not in Osaka. We left on an early train and travelled south-east to the hillside temple complex of Hasadera. Megan had considered doing this trip from Nara, but it was a little easier from Osaka and she had not found an enormous amount to do in the city. Hasadera again saw us trekking up hillsides to look at temples. This complex is approached via a covered walkway rather like the one we saw at Kibitsujinja out of Okayama. There is also an impressive five tiered pagoda set amongst the trees...or there would be if it wasn't covered in scaffolding. One of the things Hasadera is famous for is a large wooden statue of an eleven-headed version of the Bodhisattva Kannon. Whilst we did see the statue, we did not pay the additional 1000¥ required to touch her feet. We left that to the more devout.

Hasadera is also known as the "Temple of Flowers". But not in autumn it isn't. It is still very picturesque though.

Since we are now so good at train rides out to visit temples, we were back in Osaka just after lunch. Consequently, we went to see Osaka Castle. Regular readers will know what to expect when we mention castles in a Japanese context. This is about the only touristy thing we have bothered doing in Osaka. As observed, it's all slot machines and kebabs, so we haven't really engaged with the place other than to use it as a base for trips out. Whilst the hotel room was tiny, we did discover that the restaurant where we were served our boxed backpackers breakfast becomes a lively eatery in the evening, so we spent evenings in there over-ordering from the online menu.

On the subject of eateries, it seems that, if a place is popular, a queue will form outside with people waiting potentially hours to be seated. For us, this is totally alien. If we can't get in a restaurant, we go somewhere else, we don't stand outside in the cold looking wistfully in at the diners. Apart from anything else, in two hours time we probably won't even be hungry any more. The downside to this approach for us is when every eatery has a line outside. It has happened.

We only spent a couple of days "in" Osaka. It doesn't hold a huge amount of interest for us. It's probably as close as Japan gets to a backpackers' place and that just means bars and banana pancakes. There are a lot of western faces around and many of the locals have passable English. Call it travel snobbery, but where's the fun in that? Next we are off to Nara, which is also rather touristy, but only in a "day trip from Kyoto" kind of way. In fact, that's what we did last time. Apparently the place really quietens down in the evenings so we are looking forward to seeing that - and also to some day trips out to visit temples, etc - who knew?